Storing Saved Heirloom Seeds

Store saved heirloom seeds in a dry, cool, dark place to give them the best chance at viability. Learn about getting into heirloom seed saving from an organic farmer in this free gardening video. View Video Transcript

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Daniel Botkin

Video Transcript

So, you've got some seeds save, and you're real excited about planting them. How do you store them? Well, some people just wrap them up and leave them on a shelf, or leave them in their greenhouse, or worse yet, in the garden. So, seeds are living, even though they're dormant, they are living. So, you have to take some care in keeping them safe. Essentially, you want a dry, dark, cold, oxygen-free environment. And, you need to protect against rodents. The freezer's good. The freezer's real good and, although not required, you can store your seeds in a cold place, like the cellar floor, or a cold room. The main thing is that they be sealed up and protected from the deprivations or hungry rodents. I speak from firsthand experience, and tell you that if you don't, rodents will find your seeds. That's what they eat. They smell them, and they will find them, and they will eat them, and you will be sad. So to review, you need to wrap them carefully in plastic, and then find them a secondary container. You might fit multiple packages in a jar or a sealed bin with a tight-fitting lid. If you go through all the trouble of saving these incredible heirloom seeds, you want to protect your investment. So, be sure to store them carefully.